Category Archives: Suspense

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather trilogy, along with Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, are some of the most intriguing films I’ve ever seen, if only because they never question whether their criminal characters are good or evil. Instead, their stories plunge viewers deep into a world where doing evil is such a given, it’s the norm. Even in these evil worlds, however, criminals have some moral standards by which to judge the behavior of their fellow thieves, gangsters, and murderers. It is this exploration of good and evil within an already evil world that makes these films so fascinating.

The 1995 neo-noir crime film, Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, featuring an ensemble cast of Hollywood heavy-hitters, examines morality, honor, and justice among people who would scare most of us to death if we simply saw them on the street. The film’s unexpected story-delivery and darkly comedic scenes don’t hide its tragic moments, but , instead, lift it beyond the ordinary story of crime-from-the-criminal-perspective to that of a classic. Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead is a film you’ll want to watch multiple times so you can decide which of its quirky criminal characters you like best.

The film’s premise is a familiar one in crime stories: seriously bad-ass gangster wants to abandon the criminal life, go straight, and earn some good karma in the remaining time he has left, but somehow gets coerced, by someone much more dangerously bad-ass and way more powerful, into doing “one last job,” which, of course, goes terribly wrong. In Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, Jimmy the Saint (Andy Garcia) is a former hitman attempting to be a legitimate businessman with his Afterlife Advice services, where the terminally ill record reminiscences, advice, or other final messages for their loved ones. Unfortunately, Jimmy’s non-criminal life isn’t paying well enough to keep him solvent, and his former boss has paid off Jimmy’s debts and now wants him to do one last job.

Narrated by Joe (Jack Warden), to anyone who’ll listen, in a malt shop, the film’s quirky start gives you a hint of the film’s compelling and unique slang while letting you know that virtually everyone involved in the story, but especially Jimmy the Saint, is already a legend.

In those days, you wanted a piece of quim, you knew where to go. You’d go with a big noise guy, you know, a cake-eater. Before you could say “beef bayonets,” you’ve got a bangtail on your arm, sweet as Dutch cheese.

This is not a good thing, even in their criminal world. The Man with the Plan believes that if his son Bernard were reunited with his former girlfriend, Meg, things would be like the good ol’ days, when everyone was happy, and Bernard would be “cured.”

Unfortunately, Meg has a new boyfriend, and something has to be done. The Man with the Plan wants “an action,” not a “piece of work,” i.e., Jimmy is to scare the current boyfriend away from Meg and no one is to be physically hurt, let alone killed.

Because The Man with the Plan, confined to a wheelchair after an assassination attempt, repeatedly emphasizes that this is only an “action” and not a “piece of work,” the viewers immediately know that something is bound to go terribly wrong and that it’s going to effect all the characters in the film, not just Bernard or his former girlfriend Meg.

Despite having met Dagney (Gabrielle Anwar), with whom he’s falling in love, and despite trying to help a friend Lucinda (Fairuza Balk) get out of the street-walking life and go straight so she doesn’t die from drugs or disease, Jimmy goes back to work for The Man with the Plan.

Jimmy gathers together his old gang (below, L-R): Critical Bill (Treat Williams, in his career-best performance), Easy Wind (Bill Nunn), Franchise (William Forsythe), and Pieces (Christopher Lloyd). Then, on a symbollically dark and rainy night, they wait on the side of the highway to scare away Meg’s new boyfriend.

Things go so horribly wrong, in fact, that The Man with the Plan feels obligated to “buckwheats” the entire crew. For this, he hires an outside man, Mr. Shush (Steve Buscemi), who has never failed to complete a job for which he’s been hired.

But in this world, as you might have already guessed, nothing ever seems to go right, not even for the criminals who are punishing criminals who (intentionally or inadvertently) disobeyed other criminals’ orders. In almost any world, it seems, disappointment breeds betrayal, and treachery breeds vengeance, no matter who’s involved.

Though Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead earned only about $529K (USD, $1M adjusted) of its $8M budget at the box-office, it has since developed a cult-following, earning more through DVD sales and streaming services.

In 1925, Ruth Brown Snyder, of Queens NY, who was having an affair with a married salesman, Henry Gray, decided to kill her husband. With the assistance of an insurance agent, who was later fired and imprisoned for forgery, Snyder purchased an insurance policy in her husband’s name, a policy that paid extra — double indemnity — if her husband died in an act of “unexpected violence.” Snyder then attempted to kill her husband at least seven times, finally succeeding with her lover Henry Gray’s assistance, and subsequently staging the murder as a robbery gone bad.

Snyder’s inconsistent stories about the robbery-murder, along with the police discovery of the stolen items hidden in the house, caused detectives to investigate Snyder more thoroughly. When police located her lover, Gray, he confessed in great detail. Snyder was found guilty and imprisoned. In 1928, she became the first woman executed at Sing Sing since 1899. Tom Howard’s dramatic photograph of Snyder in the electric chair mid-execution was printed on the front page of the New York Daily News the next day.

Many celebrities and reporters covered Snyder’s trial, including crime reporter James M. Cain, who subsequently based two of his novels on Snyder’s story: The Postman Always Rings Twice, about a woman who murders her husband with the help of her ex-con lover; and Double Indemnity, which more closely follows Snyder’s story.

The novel is a crime fiction classic, and the 1944 film of the same name, co-written by director Billy Wilder and crime fiction author Raymond Chandler, has since become one of the defining classics of Noir Film, with all the genre’s requisite essentials: a morally dubious male protagonist, Voice-Over narration limiting the audience’s perspective to the male’s version of the tale, and the dangerously duplicitous but always beautiful and sexually alluring femme fatale.

Double Indemnity opens with a gun-shot insurance salesman, Walter (Fred MacMurray), sneaking into his company offices at night to record a Dictaphone message for a colleague, Keyes, a brilliant claims adjuster noted for ferreting out insurance fraud. Walter’s confession becomes the characteristic Voice-Over for the remainder of the film.

Wise-cracking, womanizing Walter relates his initial contact with Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck), with whom he flirts outrageously though she’s already married and, furthermore, seems to be seriously offended by his behavior. Phyllis is not only physically striking: she’s a damsel in distress. Lonely and anxious, she’s worried about her husband’s dangerous job but helpless to protect him. When she discusses accident insurance, Walter becomes wary, but it’s too late: he’s already obsessed with the “dame.”

With Phyllis’ ostensibly reluctant help, Walter sets in motion a murderous plan to get the girl of his dreams and a huge pile of money from his own insurance company. To really reap the financial benefits, however, the husband’s “accident” needs to trigger the policy’s “double indemnity” clause, a provision for payment of double the face amount of the policy, payable only under certain specific and statistically rare conditions.

Walter’s colleague, Insurance Investigator Keyes (Edward G. Robinson, playing against type as an honest man instead of as a criminal or gangster) is immediately suspicious about the husband’s accident. Keyes intentionally stalls payment on the insurance policy to aggravate Phyllis, complicating Walter’s relationship with her.

Further, the victim’s daughter Lola (Jean Heather) knows some secret about Phyllis’ past that makes Lola also suspect foul-play was involved in her father’s death. While simultaneously side-stepping his colleague’s ongoing fraud investigation, Walter spends more time with Lola to keep her from going to the police with her suspicions. Though still sexually involved with Phyllis, Walter begins to have feelings for Lola. When she tells him that she thinks her stepmother Phyllis is involved with Lola’s own boyfriend Nino, Walter’s guilt about the murder and his burgeoning fear of Phyllis make him anxious for his own life.

[b]rilliantly photographed by John F. Seitz, Double Indemnity’s use of ‘Venetian Blind’ lighting (creating a jail bars effect that foreshadows the likely, if not actual, fate of its protagonists) was to go on become a staple of the film noir look.

Based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch, which was itself loosely based on the story of Wisconsin serial killer and cannibal Ed Gein, the 1960 film Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, was filmed in black & white, by a television crew, on a small budget, because Paramount had already rejected the project, claiming its subject matter was “too repulsive… and impossible” for film. Hitchcock, who had already optioned the novel, then financed the film himself. According to film critic Roger Ebert,Psycho (1960) “remains the most effective slashing in movie history, suggesting that … artistry [is] more important than graphic details.” Because Hitchcock was answerable to no one but himself, he succeeded in creating one of the greatest psychological horror films ever made. At the same time, he created an art film classic.

The story begins as if it were a crime mystery. Marion (Janet Leigh) is having an affair with Sam (John Gavin), and she is distressed that they cannot marry because of his debts. Later that afternoon, when she returns to work, Marion is asked to take a substantial cash deposit of $40K to the bank. Instead, Marion absconds with the money, hoping to use it so she and Sam run away together.

That night, in a thunderstorm, Marion stays at an isolated and mostly unoccupied motel, managed by a young man named Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). Though handsome, Norman is gawky, and he has an odd hobby: taxidermy. The room where he serves Marion dinner is filled with dead and stuffed birds of prey.

From the spooky house overlooking the motel, Norman’s mentally ill mother can be heard berating him, and this elicits Marion’s sympathy for him. It also makes her re-evaluate her own crime, which would hurt not only her employer but his client as well. Marion takes a shower, symbolically cleansing herself of her evil intentions since she has apparently decided to return the stolen cash, when…

You may or may not know about the most famous shower scene in all of cinematic history, but the rest of the story becomes an intense murder mystery as the audience’s sympathy is shifted from impulsive criminal Marion to horrified son Norman as he desperately attempts to protect his dangerous mother.

In a move that, even now, is considered outrageously audacious, Hitchcock directs the film’s viewing audience as much as he did its actors: about a third of the way into the film, he takes all the viewers’ attention away from the ostensible protagonist — played by the film’s star power, Janet Leigh — and focuses the story on the newly introduced Norman. “I was directing the viewers,” [Hitchcock] told [fellow director] Truffaut in their book-length interview. “You might say I was playing them, like an organ.”

As Norman is feverishly working to protect his violent mother from discovery, Marion’s sister Lila (Vera Miles) is desperately worried about Marion, who has disappeared. While asking Marion’s lover Sam about her whereabouts, the pair is approached by a detective (Martin Balsam), who has been hired to retrieve the stolen money. Sam and Lila encourage the detective to search for Marion, confident that some mistake has been made concerning the missing funds, which they assume Marion will be able to explain.

Even if that means they must break into the spooky old house where Norman’s mother is obviously keeping watch over everything that happens down at the motel.

Nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Janet Leigh, and Best Director for Hitchcock, Psycho is considered one of Hitchcock’s best films. Marred only by the final scene with the psychiatrist — which appears before the classic finale with Norman and his mother — Psycho is a classic thriller, with enough realistic spookiness to keep you up at night.

It’s October, and that means it’s time for scary movies. When I was young, vampires and ghosts and werewolves usually did the trick. As I’ve gotten older, I find movies where the events could actually happen even more frightening than those supernatural beings of my childhood horror films. One of the scariest is 1956’s The Bad Seed, which was considered so potentially scary to viewing audiences that all the actors appeared to “take a bow” at the end of the film — much as they had in the stage play of the same name on which it was based — to remind everyone that it was fictional.

The Bad Seed may be fictional, but that doesn’t mean it’s not scary. And the most terrifying part of the film is that it could actually happen. To anyone. So don’t let the fact that the actors “take a bow” at the end of the film keep you from watching this horror classic. Psychologically realistic and terrifying in the extreme, The Bad Seed contains not a single paranormal character or hint, but that doesn’t mean it’s not scary.

The film stars Nancy Kelly as Christine Penmark, who begins to feel uneasy around her 8-year-old daughter Rhoda (Patty McCormack) after a little boy who’s Rhoda’s school rival dies in an accident. As Christine begins to re-evaluate things about Rhoda’s character that make her uneasy, she is faced with opposition from neighbors and family, all of whom insist Christine herself is imagining things about her angelic little girl.

Every time Christine manages to convince herself that she’s jumpy and unreasonably suspicious, however, Rhoda does something that’s less than angelic, throwing Christine into doubt all over again.

Though the film is a little heavy-handed on the heredity vs. environment discussions, it’s worth watching. The supporting cast is excellent even when their parts are minor, and include Eileen Heckart as the grief-stricken mother of the dead boy,

Paul Fix as the doting crime-writer Grand-dad who thinks his beloved daughter is just worrying about nothing in particular,

and Henry Jones as LeRoy the suspicious handyman who just knows that something is not right with pretty little Rhoda.

Despite everyone’s assurances that Rhoda is a beautiful, sweet, highly intelligent little girl, Christine has her doubts and suspicions about Rhoda’s true nature and potential for violence. After all, not everyone gets to see Rhoda when she’s upset. Or annoyed. Or even angry.

The film’s content is so scary — and so very possible — that even the original trailer had to “remind” viewers that they were watching an advertisement for a film based on a play based on William March’s novel, just so, you know, people didn’t get too creeped out. Further, The Bad Seed was so unusual for its time that it had a notice at the end of the film, asking viewers not to reveal its ending to others.

Of all the horror films I have ever watched or blogged about, The Orphanage (2007) — written by Sergio G. Sánchez, directed by JA Bayona, and produced by Guillermo del Toro (The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth) — is the only one that I would caution adults not to allow children to watch. As in many of del Toro’s other films, there is a strong connection between fairy tales and horror, but I’m not talking about the sanitized versions of fairy tales that most children are now familiar with. If children, especially those under age 10, watch this film with you, they may be quite distressed. By the time you discover why young children should not watch The Orphanage, it’ll be too late: they’ll probably be seriously upset by this film, if not actually traumatized, so be warned. The Orphanage is R-rated for a reason, and there are no special effects, bad language, or graphic violence to warrant the rating: the mature rating comes purely in the content of the story itself.

Laura (Belén Rueda) spent many of her formative years in an orphanage, where she loved, and was loved by, the other children. Despite her having grown up without parents, Laura she remembers being happy in that orphanage.

Simón already has a couple of imaginary friends, but he makes a few new imaginary friends at the orphanage-now-home. This starts to disturb his parents, who aren’t sure that he’s not just trying to get more attention at a time when their focus is going to be divided among the new resident children, all of whom will have special needs.

Laura becomes a sort of detective, trying to discover what might have happened to her son. She also invites a psychic (Geraldine Chaplin) to visit the orphanage in an attempt to locate the missing Simón.

Though her husband and other grieving parents who have lost children attempt to convince Laura that Simón is dead, rather than merely missing, she refuses to give up hope. She travels all around the area looking for her son. When husband Carlos suggests they leave the scene of their tragic loss, Laura insists they remain at the orphanage, if only because it was the last place anyone saw her son.

Laura then decides that the mysterious hooded figure she saw on the day Simón disappeared must have been a ghost. She is determined to make contact with any ghosts who might be at the orphanage, to ask them for help locating her son.

Some reviewers of the film complained that the ghosts were a minor part of the story, and I have to admit that they are, but I found that a strength of the film rather than a weakness. The Orphanage is about loss and grieving, about guilt and hope. It’s about parents and children, husbands and wives. It’s about how tragedy can forever change everything in our lives, and how some people simply cannot live with the devastating pain of irreparable loss.

It is not a film for young children: you will just have to trust me on this.

In Spanish with English subtitles, The Orphanage is an intense and excruciating psychological drama, masking itself as a ghost story. Yes, there are some ghosts, but that is not why this is a powerful and memorable film.

Winner of 14 Goya Awards (Spanish Academy Awards) and winner of 8, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, The Orphanage is available for rent for $2.99 from Amazon, from iTunes, and from Vudu.

I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t think much of post-apocalyptic dramas that include zombies. I mean, who’s going to root for the zombies in any battle between them and humans? I find human conflict so much more intriguing and dangerous, whether in fiction or film. Maybe it’s because zombies are so… so… mindless… at least in most of the dramas that I’ve seen. When I rented the 2013 film Open Grave, nothing in its description mentioned “zombies,” and the film never uses that word — not even once.

Instead, the closest any of the characters come to an explanation of the post-apocalyptic world in Open Grave is “plague,” specifically, “the plague that cast the world into darkness,” and even that line comes near the end of the film. Call me intrigued-against-my-will if you wish, but a “plague that cast the world into darkness” and masses of dead bodies in open graves with no explanation — even to the characters in the film — is much more perplexing than plain old zombies. Open Grave is one of the few “zombie-like” films that earns kudos from me.

Open Grave begins with an amnesiac guy who awakes in an open grave, surrounded by countless dead bodies. As you can imagine, he’s totally freaked out, and not just because he can’t remember how he got there. I mean, there are hundreds of dead bodies in this mass grave, and he’s in there with them. Yeah, how’s that for a gripping start?

Our amnesiac manages to get out of the grave with help from a mysterious woman who doesn’t speak. He follows the Mute (Josie Ho) to a house, where he eventually learns that his name is probably John (Sharlto Copley). Once at the house, John meets other victims, most of whom have some degree of amnesia, among them Lukas (Thomas Kretschmann, below L), who has some anger issues, and Nathan (Joseph Morgan, below R), who is terribly scared of everything,

Most of the people in the house are really good at using weapons, which seem to be stored all over the place, and that scares just about every single one of them. Even more scary, however, is a calendar with the 18th marked, and which the Mute points out, frantically and repeatedly. Since the calendar is marked with Xs almost to the 18th, which is only two days away, John and the others realize that something very important — even ominous — must be happening on that date.

So there’s that open mass grave, amnesia that’s affecting everyone, and now some scary deadline that only the Mute seems to understand… spookiness to the max.

Though some of the amnesiacs have this feeling that they know some of the others, they’re not sure, so nobody feels safe. When they begin to explore the surrounding countryside, they find creepy “scarecrows” tied to or hanging from trees, and, as you can imagine, that makes them more stressed.

When they find a guy trapped in a barbed-wire fence, calling for help, things go bad quickly, and the members of the group turn on each other in their desperation to survive and in their fear of what’s happened, which they can’t even remember.

They can’t shake the feeling that there’s some “big picture” they seem to have forgotten, and that something really super-monstrously big — like bigger than BIG — is going to happen in a couple of days, and not just because of that calendar with all the days marked off and with the 18th circled. They need to regain their memories quicker than quick if they’re going to discover why the 18th is so important to their survival and to their discovering why there are mass open graves filled with dead bodies.

Are those dead bodies in the open grave the result of an attack? Of a plague? Of mass murder? Of vicious and unethical medical experimentation? Was John involved in that unethical medical experimentation? Were Sharon and the others helping him, or trying to stop him?

I don’t know, and I’ve seen the film more than once.

You watch Open Grave, and let me know what you think.

One of the best post-apocalypse movies ever made, Open Grave is available for purchase or rent ($2.99-3.99) on Amazon, on YouTube, on iTunes, on Vudu, and more.

I first read The Turn of the Screw when I was ten years old after I learned it was about ghosts, and much of what I loved about the book was what I still love: are there really ghosts or are they figments of troubled people’s imagination? Last year, I saw the original British film adaptation of Henry James’ classic ghost story, The Turn of the Screw, and was completely spooked by the great performances and the cinematography. I don’t know how I missed the film before, given my obsession with scary movies and my complete worship of Deborah Kerr, who plays the spooked governess. With a screenplay by William Archibald and Truman Capote, The Turn of the Screw has fantastic acting, and the performances are plenty scary without any special effects.

Deborah Kerr as governess Miss Giddens, The Innocents (C)

Deborah Kerr stars as the Governess, Miss Giddens, who comes to an isolated estate to care for two orphans, Flora (Pamela Franklin) and Miles (Martin Stephens),

Still, Miss Giddens is happy enough with her lovely charges and with the gorgeous house, despite all its creakity-creaks and spookity-shadows and creepity closed-off rooms. She’s happy with the beautiful gardens and the beautiful lake and the outdoor picnics with the ever-so-beautiful children and… oh, all of it.

Even if she occasionally does think she sees something out of place and inexplicable…

Oh, it’s just her imagination, isn’t it, because she’s happy with the house, the garden, the lake, and she’s so incredibly happy with the sweet, innocent, beautiful, orphan children. Most of all, she’s happy with those sweet children.

Well, it’s bad enough that Miss Giddens thinks the two siblings are keeping secrets from her and lying about it. Even worse when they two of them go off on the grounds by themselves without her permission or knowledge. And it’s really not very proper at all when she says “goodnight” to Miles and he kisses her in a totally inappropriate way.

When Miss Giddens begins to see ghosts, she gets scared. When she begins to suspect that the children know all about the ghosts, who seem to be the ghosts of people that the children actually knew, she gets worried. But when Miss Giddens begins to suspect that the lovely orphan children may, in fact, be possessed by the ghosts’ evil spirits, well, that’s an entirely different story. Miss Giddens feels morally responsible for the children’s welfare, so she simply must do something drastic to protect them from physical, psychological, and spiritual danger.

The film stays close to the source material in never revealing whether or not the children can also see the ghosts, leading us to question the Governess’ sanity as she attempts to free her charges of the evil that she believes possesses them. Are the ghosts merely a figment of her imagination? Are the children possessed? Is Miss Giddens dangerously crazy? You’ll have to decide those for yourself in this scary classic.

If you’ve read the Henry James novella, you’ll really appreciate the film’s subtlety. If you’ve seen the later remake of the same work, The Others, there’s no comparison: both films are great though they are completely different from each other. The Others is one of my top 7 Wonders of the Horror World.

Whatever version of The Innocents you find — dated 1956 or 1961 — make sure you have the black & white film, not the colorized one: the stark cinematography helps create the scares in this completely non-CGI horror classic. The Innocents is available for rent or purchase from Amazon.

The 2003 psychological horror film Identity is not a direct adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1939 mystery novel And Then There Were None, though the plot of Identity is structured like that classic novel. In both, “10 strangers arrive at an isolated location which becomes temporarily cut off from the rest of the world,” where terror and paranoia mount as the strangers are killed off one by one. Despite the fact that one of the characters in Identity tries to explain the unusual and downright scary events at the isolated motel with a story of displaced Native Americans who may be seeking supernatural revenge, there is nothing other-worldly about Identity and its scares. The real horror of Identity is even spookier than revenge-seeking ghosts.

The story begins with a chauffeur, Ed (John Cusack), getting trapped by washed-out roads at a lonely motel with his movie-star passenger Caroline Suzanne (Rebecca DeMornay), who is beyond annoyed at the fact that they end up stuck at some slimy motel.

Because of the relentless thunderstorm, other travellers are also soon stranded at the motel, including a former prostitute Paris (Amanda Peet), who is leaving Las Vegas and traveling to Florida to start a new life as a citrus farmer,

It doesn’t help that some of the stranded motorists feel they’re being targeted, that it’s raining and it’s the middle of the deep dark night, or that way too many of the stranded people at the out-of-the-way motel are awfully proficient in the use of firearms.

insists that his client-patient is not morally responsible or legally guilty of the crimes. Since Rivers is not mentally competent, Dr. Malick explains, it is irrelevant that Rivers’ body might have, in fact, perpetrated the murders that Malcolm Rivers was convicted of committing.

What does that convicted serial killer have to do with the people stranded at the isolated motel in the pouring rain? Are they his victims? Are we, in fact, seeing the killer’s memories of all the people he killed? Is the killer truly and verily mentally incompetent, as his psychiatrist insists to the judge and attorneys present at the last-minute competency hearing?

You won’t miss the absent supernatural elements in this scary thriller. By the time you get to the big Reveal, you’ll be as spooked as the people stranded at that isolated motel.

The film has a great storyline and powerful acting by everyone involved. Identity is a psychological horror great. It’s available for rent for a few bucks, or purchase for a few dollars more, from Amazon, from YouTube, from iTunes, and more.

Pandora, whose name means either “all-gifted” or “all-giving,” was ostensibly the first human female created by the Greek gods. Each of the gods helps create Pandora by giving her specific gifts. According to Hesiod’s myth,

Pandora opened a jar (pithos), in modern accounts sometimes mistranslated as “Pandora’s box,” releasing all the evils of humanity — although the particular evils, aside from plagues and diseases, are not specified in detail by writer Hesiod — leaving only elpis [the personification and spirit of Hope] inside once she had closed it again.

The mistranslation of the Greek pithos (“jar”) to the Latin pyxis (“box”) is usually attributed to Erasmus when he translated the tale into Latin. It is important to return to the original, however, since Hesiod’s pithos refers to a large storage jar, sometimes half-buried in the ground, used for wine, oil or grain; more important, pithos can also refer to a funerary jar.

Hesiod does not indicate where this jar of evils came from, why Pandora has it, nor why Hope remains in the jar, but it is the last omission that has raised so many philosophical and moral questions over the centuries.

Is the imprisonment of Hope inside a jar full of evils for humanity a benefit for humanity, or a further bane? [According to] M. L. West: “[Hope’s retention in the jar] is comforting, and we are to be thankful for this antidote to our present ills.” [But some scholars, such as Mark Griffith] take the opposite view: “[Hope] seems to be a blessing withheld from men so that their life should be the more dreary and depressing.”

Does Pandora’s jar/box preserve Hope for mankind to deal with the evils released, or does it keep Hope away from man by trapping it inside the jar/box?

This philosophical question about Hope, trapped in the pithos by Pandora, along with the symbolism of Pandora’s pithos as a “funerary jar,” is important for understanding the 2016 post-apocalyptic, dystopian film The Girl with All the Gifts, written by M.R. Carey, who wrote the novel of the same name simultaneously. While most of us might not think of zombies and the Greek goddess Pandora in the same sentence, this film attempts to put them all in the same box, so to speak. If you don’t pay enough attention to the brief story of Pandora early in the film, you might not get the full import of the symbolism. Is the “girl with all the gifts” releasing torments upon mankind and then retaining hope for them, or is she releasing the torments and then keeping hope from mankind?

In the film, the girl with all the gifts, the Pandora, is a little girl named Melanie, brilliantly played by Sennia Nanua in her first role. She is imprisoned, and treated like some dangerous, depraved criminal, despite the fact that she greets her armed gaurds and captors with the utmost courtesy and respect. She is taken to a classroom, along with many others children who seem to be just like her.

Once there, however, Melanie reveals more intelligence than the other children. Further, her teacher, Miss Justineau (Gemma Arterton), clearly favors her, discarding the usual lessons to tell stories from Greek myths at Melanie’s request, letting the students write their own fictional stories, and even, at one point, touching Melanie lightly on the head.

It is when Miss Justineau touches Melanie that we learn why these young children are treated worse than rabid animals. Seargeant Eddie Parks (Paddy Considine) rushes into the classroom to “remind” the teacher why these children are restrained in the first place: they are infected with a fungus that makes them flesh-eating Zombies, or “Hungries” in this film version.

Unlike the Hungries that exist beyond the fenced and guarded bouandaries of this research facility, however, these children are able to speak, think, and, perhaps, feel. Dr. Caldwell (Glenn Close) is studying the children, and she is especially interested in Melanie.

Though Dr. Caldwell believes Melanie is merely “mimicking’ human emotions and behaviors, Caldwell also hopes that Melanie might provide the raw material for a vaccine to protect the human survivors.

That is, Melanie’s brain and spinal cord — dissected — might provide the raw material for such a vaccine.

Therein lies the rub: Dr. Caldwell is more than willing to sacrifice Melanie for the good of the remaining humans, but Miss Justineau sees real — not mimicked — humanity in Melanie, and wants to protect her.

Of course, no zombie film would be complete without an invasion by the mindless flesh-eaters, and the research station soon gets overrun by Hungries, causing Dr. Caldwell, Miss Justineau, and Sgt Parks to flee the compromised facility — with a masked Melanie in tow.

Lest you think The Girl with All the Gifts is standard Zombie fare, however, recall that the infected Melanie can speak, think, reason, and love. She clearly loves and protects Miss Justineau, and seems to care for the others as well (less for Dr. Caldwell, perhaps, who constantly eyes Melanie as a brain-donor rather than as a sentient being).

Further, Melanie is the “girl with all the gifts” — the Pandora who has the jar with the evils and with Hope. On first viewing, I missed the Pandora allusion completely until nearly the end of the film. I thought Melanie was going to have some intellectual gifts that would give mankind Hope. When she proved to be smart but not a genius, I assumed she was going to give mankind the Hope of saving the Hungries, or, at the very least, of preventing the spread of the virus (called a “fungus” in this version of the story) by “donating” her brain and spinal cord to help Dr. Caldwell make the vaccine.

When Melanie finally proves that she does, indeed, have emotions and morals, they are not what you might expect, and her behavior recalls the philosophical questions raised by Hesiod’s original Pandora story. Is Hope trapped in the jar to give mankind optimism, or to torment them?

My Most Fave Bloggers

Rachel in the OC
by CSA survivor and advocate Rachel Thompson, on surviving, preventing, and spreading the word about Childhood Sexual Abuse

Lydia Schoch
one of the best blogs with an amazing variety of topics, from the Zen of medical tests to her weekly Suggestion Saturdays and Saturday Seven, which feature fascinating blogs and websites

The Bloggess
by bestselling author Jenny Lawson, on depression, marriage, lawn-gerbils, and other random absurdities of life

BrainPickings
one of the most diligently researched blogs I've ever found, written by Maria Popova, it covers writers, artists, books, and all things wonderfully intellectual and artistic

Historical, People & Fiction

Mimi Matthews
a marvelous blog on all things Victorian, from clothes and pets to personalities and other authors who write books and blogs on the same time period

A Writer's Perspectiveby April Munday, with well-researched posts on all things Medieval, from the weight of armor and the mobility of the knights wearing it to what peasants really ate and how they got betrothed and married

Barking Up The Wrong Treeby Eric Barker, with researched posts on living your life better with the principles of meditation, Stoicism, and mindfulness, and more

Raptitudeby David Cain, with an emphasis on meditation, mindfulness, and living life more fully

Elaine Mansfield
with a tagline "Grief is a Sacred Journey," this blog poignantly discusses grieving, mindfulness, Buddhism, and beginning life again after tragedy makes you think it's ended

Writing, Publishing, Marketing

Bad Redhead Media
also run by Rachel Thompson, with an emphasis on helping writers and other small business owners master social media

Red Pen of Doom
by speechwriter and author Guy Bergstrom, who posts on everything writing, to help screenwriters, novelists, and journalists, along with great Red-Pen-skewering of books and videos, as well as frequent instructions on how to survive an apocalypse

Anne R Allen
by authors Anne R. Allen and Ruth Harris, with an emphasis on posts to help writers with everything from writing the first draft to revising, from self-publishing and marketing to social media and handling reviews

Writing and Wellness
by Colleen M. Story, and frequently featuring guest posts by authors, this blog covers everything concerning writers and their health, psychological and physical, from easing back pain to increasing creativity

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My Most Fave Podcast

Sleep With Me Podcast
written by Drew Ackerman, and performed by Drew as "Dearest Scooter," this brilliant and popular podcast knocks out insomnia by lulling you to sleep with meandering introductions and ingeniously "boring" stories. Drew and Scooter also do the Game of Drones and Sleep to Strange podcasts

RockWay Press

RockWay Press on Twitter

Copyright and All That Jazz

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